Archives for November 2012

About a year ago I started planning to crowdsource funding the release of my upcoming novel. I’ll spoil the ending right now: I did it, and it was successful, raising just over $1000.

Recently, I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a couple of novels and I’ve been asked if I plan to crowdsource funding for their release, too. I hadn’t really thought about it (I’m not quite at that stage yet), but that made me think about the process for The Beauty of Our Weapons and whether or not I do want to give it another go.

As I’ve said, the previous campaign was financially successful. However, it was also stressful. Really stressful.

The campaign met its target on its last day, and it was met thanks to a very generous donor who chose one of the major packages that I’d included mostly for completeness. I was completely shocked first that the target had been met and doubly so by the generosity of this donor.

Though, nearly missing the target wasn’t the most stressful part of the process. I used an IndieGoGo campaign which allowed me to keep any funds raised regardless of whether I’d met the goal, and I’d structured the campaign in such a way that I had different things I could accomplish at different levels of success, so I was reasonably happy with the money aspect early on. What was much more stressful to me what the constant sense of nagging everyone I knew about it.

I am not a natural salesperson. Not even close. I find it kind of distasteful to ask for money under any circumstances, so promoting the campaign was really hard for me personally. I don’t know whether I did a good job or not; no one told me to stop talking about it, but people tend to be pretty polite about that sort of thing.

I did notice that almost all of the people who contributed were people who had previously supported my work. This wasn’t surprising, but it does make me wonder about the value of using this kind of method for the future, especially since I’d be tapping the same people over and over again.

So, I’m asking you: do you regularly use Kickstarter/IndieGoGo as a way to support the creative people whose work you like? Is that a method you prefer or would you rather just buy their thing once it’s commercially available? Do you like the aspect of many crowdsourcing projects where you can get limited edition or special physical products? If so, what kinds of things do you like to get?

And finally, if you are in favour of this method of funding, how would you suggest that campaigners share their news without being annoying? How do you like to be asked for money?

1. I am a creature of habit. I love schedules and plans, and have been known to turn down the opportunity to do something awesome because I’d scheduled something lame and totally unimportant for that time. More than once.

2. I used to be a real wrong-tool-for-the-job kind of person. I’d use whatever was handy for just about anything. I once built a set of patio furniture on my balcony with only a handsaw and electric drill. Nothing really wrong with that, except that my balcony wasn’t flat, I had neither a workbench nor a vice. At one point I used a stack of old CDs shoved under one end of a piece of wood to try and recreate a more or less 90° angle to attach the table legs. It sort of worked – good enough for me.

However, living on a cruising boat for several years has broken my attachment to both of these aspects of my character. They’re still there, but I can usually recognize when they have to go. When you’re at the mercy of the weather, plans are written in the sand at low tide. And using the wrong tool can ruin a lot more than your day. When the gale starts ablowing, you reef those sails.

So, I’m getting better at realizing that just becuae I’ve always done something a particular way doesn’t mean I have to keep doing it that way. Which brings me to why I abandoned Nanowrimo this year.

I’m an 8-time successful participant in Nanowrimo, and those writing bursts have all been useful. Several have turned into parts of now-completed novels and the couple of attempts which will never see the light of day in any format were extremely useful writing exercises from which I learned a lot. And so it was that I entered the ninth consecutive November where I anticipated getting down 50000 words of a long form project.

I started on Nov 1, as usual, and by the first weekend of November I was on track wordcount-wise. No problem, right? Except there was a massive problem. I was ruining my writing.

Unlike previous years, I now have a daily writing schedule that I’ve been keeping. It’s been working out really well for me, as I share my time between writing new fiction, editing works in progress and the inevitable administrivia of a self-employed writer. It’s a good schedule (I love schedules!) and it’s been making me crazy productive. Until I screwed it all up with Nanowrimo.

It was obvious that it wasn’t working for me, and when a tool stops being useful I’ve finally learned that you put it aside and get one that is. It was hard, though. The power of the unbroken streak, the call of the familiar – they are very hard for me to ignore. But it became clear that if I carried on with the Nano schedule, I’d be doing it only to have done Nano again. And what’s the point of that? I already know I can do it. I also already know I can write novels without the Nano machine behind me. So why was I doing it again?

No one knows.

So, I quit. The day I decided it was over, the project I’d been working on got better. My ideas crystalized and the writing improved considerably. I’d gotten back on to the writing schedule which was working for me – I’d picked up the correct tool.

It wasn’t the first time Grey had heard the tell-tale bang… whoosh of a pot of chemicals self-igniting, but they weren’t running such a half-assed operation that it happened often. He dropped the stim cart he’d been filling, the small vial bouncing off the table, its window breaking on impact and the half measure of bright green liquid spilling out. He didn’t even stop to see what happened to the bulb he’d been using to fill the cart — who cared about a few euros worth of stims when there was a fireball in the next room.

Grey fought the entirely natural impulse to just get the hell out of there. It was a crummy little squat they’d moved into a couple of weeks previously, and there was a way out on to the back alley from the hallway off the room he was in. But Ev was in the kitchen on the other side of the doorway. The doorway, which was now glowing with a sickly orange light.

He ran to the door and yelled, “Ev! Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she croaked, like she was choking on fumes, which made sense because the stuff she was cooking in there was notorious for giving off noxious gasses when it burned. “Fire’s almost out.”

“Get out of there,” he hollered, then took a deep breath of the relatively fresh air. Holding his breath, he pulled the neck of his shirt up over his nose and barged into the kitchen.

Ev was standing over the stove, holding a heavy blanket over the pot. It was hot as hell in the little kitchen, but it was just as warm out in the other room. There was no ventilation in this squat and the weather had been muggy for days. Grey looked around quickly and took stock of the situation.

There were trails of flame on the floor, and Grey’s eyes could feel something nasty in the air, but there was no inferno and Ev seemed to be in one piece. He stamped out the few bits of burning liquid on the ground and peeked under the blanket to make sure the fire in the pot was out. It all seemed okay, so he grabbed Ev’s hand. “Come on,” Grey grunted and pulled her out of the room. It was probably only about ten seconds since he’d heard the bang before they were out in the alley, sucking in the warm, thick air and coughing up their lungs.

“What happened?” Grey asked, once he felt like he could almost breathe properly again.

Ev just shook her head and Grey could see her struggling for breath. He cleared some of the junk from beside the wall and made a place for her to sit. He took her hand, which any other day would have made his heart race and his face turn the colour of their newest mix, Heartfire. Today, though, all he could think was that it should have been him in there.

He helped her sit down and she put her head between her knees. Grey sunk down next to her, and mimicked her posture. It wasn’t because he felt faint, but because he knew that if he’d been the one cooking the stuff it wouldn’t have happened. Ultimately, he knew, this was his fault.

The wet, painful sounds of Ev puking distracted him from his self-pity and he put a hand on her back. He could see that she’d singed her eyebrows and there was a streak of neon green on her face, but being sick was a good sign. She’d be okay. This time.

How much should an ebook cost? This is one of those questions that is discussed endlessly among authors these days. “Price low and shift a bazillion units.” “99¢ devalues literature.” “I worked on this for five years; I can’t stand practically giving it away.” “All ebooks should be $4.99.”

To a certain extent, I think it’s a question with no answer. Everyone has their own top price they are willing to pay for a book, and not every book is going to have the same value to a potential buyer. Some people think paying under $10 for something is cheap enough to be an impulse buy, others hem and haw over paying a buck for anything. There is no right answer for everyone.

However, there’s a new model being proposed and I’ve decided to participate in the experiment. Scribl.com is a new ebook marketplace that uses a fluctuating pricing structure based on popularity. The idea is that by charting popularity of downloads, they can prove what the market will bear.

On Scribl, all ebooks start at free. As more people download the free version, the price moves up a tier. The more downloads at any price, the higher the price becomes.

The idea is that the market will bear a higher price for more popular books and that, as a reader, you know that if a book is priced at $6.99, that’s because a lot of people have already purchased it.

I’ve put Beautiful Red and a new novella (maybe more of a novelette, really) called Fire. Escape. on Scribl. For now, they are both free, so if you want to get an ebook copy of either or both, head over to Scribl soon.

Disclaimer: This is an experiment for me. I don’t believe there is a correlation between quality and popularity, so being able to judge a book by its price isn’t something I buy at all. However, the current state of the art in ebook pricing is out to lunch, so I welcome people who are trying to innovate in this space, and want to support the attempt. If this interests you, go check it out.

Recently I had the singular pleasure of receiving a note from someone I’d briefly conversed with years ago in another internet life. The note began “Are you the Darusha Wehm who…”

This always makes me smile, as if there are a zillion Darusha Wehms out there (there aren’t), though I understand that people want to make sure they have the right person for these things.

Anyhow, the note was to thank me for some kind words I’d sent to this person, probably five years ago. At that time, I’d read something this person wrote, loved it, and said so. That was all. That simple act of telling someone that I liked their work was enough to resonate in their mind all this time and encourage them to continue.

I often forget about the totally disproportionate effect that encouragement can have, especially to creative endeavours. It can be a lonely existence, making new things. The self-doubt is always there, at least it is for me. every time I start something, there’s this evil little voice in my head that says, “This is stupid and you’re stupid for doing it.” But, thankfully, I also have all the other voices of encouragement I’ve heard over the years and they drown that fucker out.

It takes so little effort to tell someone you like what they do but it has such a powerful impact. When that nasty little voice is taking a deep breath and getting ready to do its thing, those thirty seconds to send a tweet or an email or leave a comment saying “hey, I think your thing is really great,” can make the difference between listening to the voice and giving up or telling it to shut it and getting back to work.

And don’t forget the self-serving angle: when you encourage people to keep making things you like, they make more things for you to like. It’s a win-win!

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Andersson Dexter: Book Four

After settling into a new job, new home and new living arrangements, Andersson Dexter has finally found a comfortable life in both the physical and virtual worlds. But that sense of security is blown apart when an explosion rocks Dex’s real-life Nice neighbourhood.

He and his colleagues begin an investigation into a string of seemingly senseless and random vandalism attacks, that remind them all of similar assaults in the simulated world Marionette City. While at first the attacks seem more like a nuisance than a threat, Dex discovers that there are more serious — even fatal — consequences.

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